are major balance changes over?

[chaotik0]

they didn’t do a lot this patch, i think they might just be at a point where they don’t what major things to change because the game is nearing the end of its life span (only 2 seasons left, the next one about to start). we likely won’t be seeing much major changes in the rest of the patches, unless they want to save the major changes for the mid-season, which makes sense to see how the new weapons and kits do against other options, but that does not excuse changes that we desperately needed for a while. like pencil. usually they go crazy with nerfs for weapons that dominate in turf war, like they did with stamper (that was deserved though i admit), tri, and cds (didn’t it only win with 1 team in 1 tournament?). is pencil not used in turf or something? anyway, if major balance changes are over, i hope it’s because they are cooking with splat 4, because that means they can have time to make that game good without having too much time in between that and end of this game. they still better not be releasing that in like a year because it will be terrible if so.

 

[ThestralZ]

I'm not a game dev nor an expert in balancing, but my hunch is that there is enough backline diversity in Solo Q for Nintendo to turn a blind eye to Pencil. For me playing 2300 X Rank in Ttek, Pencil doesn't show up an absurd amount compared to other backlines. Stuff like Liter, Hydra, Heavy Deco, and a few others show up in my games just as much as Pencil does. I also think that compared to Slayer/Skirmisher and even Support, Backline/Anchor players are more uncommon, meaning less people are casually playing Pencil. Nintendo might be trying to avoid an Overwatch/TF2 like situation where they balance their game based on competitive play, and not general play (I also think this is the reason E-Liter hasn't ever been nerfed in Splat 3 beyond points to special). If Pencil is going to get nerfed, it will be because its usage rate rises dramatically in Solo Q. Until then, I don't think anything about the situation will change.

 

[missingno]

6.0 had minimal changes.

6.1 did have bigger changes, but I feel like a lot of it got overlooked because we're all frustrated that they didn't touch Pencil.

7.0 has minimal changes.

7.1...?

 

[Norilla]

Even if they're done adding content, they're still going to do balancing patches to the game, just like the did with the other games.
It seems like Nintendo only really does bigger balancing changes during mid-season patches; likely afraid of over tuning or overly nerfing something when there's going to be need kits/weapons, which seems to follow how they've been going about patches.
Nearly all of the balance changes to main weapons seem minor, even when something could really use a buff, the only exceptions to this I can think of are Machine, Stamper, and Swig. Even when something needs a minor buff or nerf, it always seems like they try to dance around the problem, such as Splash being able to farm Crabs, or Brella being super inconsistent due to damage, and will instead do something that hardly effects the game. It could just be a fear of having another Sting Ray or Missile situation, where they take something super weak and then buff it to the point of being way over powered (also probably why they hate putting good subs and specials on newer kits).

 

[isaac4]

It could just be a fear of having another Sting Ray or Missile situation, where they take something super weak and then buff it to the point of being way over powered (also probably why they hate putting good subs and specials on newer kits).

I really hope that their reason for not giving a lot of kits bomb subs isn't because of previous Meta weapons like Machine or Stamper.
That just sounds like a very bad way of balancing weapons. especially when the narrow hallway map design was a big factor in which weapons and specials were at the top

 

[ThestralZ]

It's also worth mentioning that there's a chance for 1, maybe 2 balance updates after the last season ends but before Splatoon 4 begins, seeing as how Splatoon 2 did the same thing, albeit under different circumstances.

 

[briank913]

Mid season patches are bigger in terms of balancing while new season patches are minimal. This one more so because Side Order. So I wouldn't say major patches are done. So whether Pencil lives to see through another patch remains to be seen while H3 is still praying that it'll get a good buff. I'm not an H3 or L3 player and even I'm hoping for a buff.

 

[Yosi Spring]

I bet we'll see changes made to the new main weapons, but it's not looking like the existing weapons are gonna be changed much at this rate.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

A very similar thing happened with crab meta, where they took forever to change anything and then they made a couple smallish over a couple patches and made it still good, but not so dominant anymore. It feels like we've been waiting around as long for pencil now so hopefully we'll see some nerfs in 7.1.